I was recently thinking about parameter evaluation order and how come it
is unspecified in OCaml. Maybe this was already discussed here, but I do
not recall it and cannot find it, either. Do not get me wrong, I do not
have an unsurmontable problem with unspecified parameter evaluation
ordering, and in a world full of languages with similar disclaimers I
could not even have a problem. Also, side effects in parameters is just
ugly. So the current shape of the language is fine with me.
But I do think that currying + strictness + side-effects =>
left-to-right evaluation order. That is because a multi-parameter
function application should be functionally equivalent to a closure
taking the first (== leftmost) parameter and returning a closure which
takes the second parameter etc. while parameters should be evaluated
before passing, as per strictness.
Consider the following code:
==== ordertest.ml =====
let f a b c d = ()
let () =
let ff1 = f (print_string "1") in
let ff2 = ff1 (print_string "2") in
let ff3 = ff2 (print_string "3") in
ff3 (print_string "4");
print_newline ()
let () =
let f2 = f (print_string "1") (print_string "2")
in f2 (print_string "3") (print_string "4") ;
print_newline ()
let () =
f
(print_string "1")
(print_string "2")
(print_string "3")
(print_string "4");
print_newline ()
==============
The three let ()'s should be functionally equivalent, and yet they are not:
---------------------
$ ocaml ordertest.ml
1234
2143
4321
---------------------
ocamlopt creates a different outcome, but that is well known: the last
line reads 1234.
Of course, if this kind of logic was applied, labels and FFI's would be
difficult to handle. Probably even enrichment of the type system with
'has side effect' and forbidding the use of expressions with such types
in parameters would be simpler than that, not that I advocate either
solution. I do not say we should have left-to-right evaluation order,
only that it would be more logical. Am I wrong?
M-